


Lovell

by IAmWhelmed



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Family, Family Fluff, Friends to Parents to Lovers, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 16:25:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7899775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmWhelmed/pseuds/IAmWhelmed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max and Isaac are charged with the task of housing an infant spectral, a baby whose mother died in birth. It is through taking care of their new child that they start to fall for each-other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lovell

He was small when they first held him, small enough to fit perfectly in both of Max’s hands. A few strands of black hair stuck to his head like a buzz cut. He was crying like he’d just been born, like he’d hardly been out of the womb two minutes. He’d fallen in love instantly, though it might have just been a wave of nostalgia; he remembered Zoey wrapping her fingers around his thumb when she’d first been born, and the way the infant in his arms clutched his shirt in small hands was enough to remind him just how intense holding a baby the first time could be.

“We’re not actually his parents” Isaac mumbled, peeking over Max’s shoulder to get a better look at the babe. “It’s not our place to name him, right?”

“Whoever adopts him can always rename him” Spender ran a gentle hand over its small strands of hair, and Max nearly squeaked when it made little bubbling noises. “In the meantime, you have to call him something, don’t you?”

“I mean, yeah but…”

“Why couldn’t Isabel and Ed take the kid, again?” Max didn’t care, really- he just needed to sound like he wasn’t already deciding what costume the kid was gonna be wearing for Halloween in four months. He still had shambles of his persona to maintain. A baby was the last thing he needed, not when the rest of his friends already knew he was more sympathetic than he pretended to be.

“Max, really? One newborn is enough, don’t ya think?”

Oh, right. He’d completely forgotten about Adelita, as young as she was.

Max sighed and shifted the baby in his hands, holding it in one arm so he could use his sleeve to wipe away the drool on its chin. Isaac set a hand on his forearm, meeting Max’s startled eyes with a nod. Isaac taking the baby out of his arms felt like a small piece of yarn had been cut somewhere in his chest, but he shrugged it down and watched as Isaac readjusted their new child to lay its head on his shoulder. “Well, I’ve always liked the name Lovell.”

 

 

Max was good with kids, Isaac soon found out. It was almost mystifying, watching his roommate go to work tempering the milk in one of the three baby bottles they’d purchased. He handled Lovell so carefully, so kindly; he almost didn’t look like Max when he held him.

Isaac stood at the edge of the doorway to their small kitchen, eyeing Max as he passed between the coffee maker and the bottle heater Spender had passed to them the night they took their infant home. Lovell slammed his tiny hands on the high chair, bumbling and spitting because he was excited to have breakfast. Max smiled, and Isaac’s heart did flips under his lungs. “All right, all right!” He was laughing, dabbing the sippy end of the bottle to his wrist to be sure he hadn’t accidentally boiled the milk.

It was only day three, and Isaac was already sure that Lovell did something to Max, something nobody else on the face of the earth could have done; he’d sewn up that hole in Max, the one his mother had left at such an early age. In place of missing a mother, he’d become a father Isaac himself wasn’t sure he quite leveled up to. In truth, Isaac was almost jealous. He’d tried his best for years, fruitlessly, to ease that pain and that fear and that pessimism, and somehow Lovell had cleared it all out of Max’s system with a squeaky laugh and big blue eyes.

That was okay though, because Isaac was falling in love with those small illegible words too.

Max set the bottle before Lovell, holding it out for him to take in his impatient fingers. Isaac snorted when he started jumping up and down in his high chair, gurgling sounds becoming increasingly desperate the closer the bottle grew. Max turned to look at him, looking entirely unsurprised that Isaac had been watching him the whole time. That smile stayed on his face, and Isaac felt some odd form of relief and happiness to see this new Max stick around.

 

 

If Max was protective of the kid, Isaac was a downright guard dog.

He’d spent a good three hours doing patrol around the city, since something had come up and Ed couldn’t make it to his turn. He still wasn’t sure what happened, something about Isabel making their house a warzone because she couldn’t get out of bed yet. He could only imagine what horrors he was being subjected to (postpartum depression for a woman like Isabel was bound to be hell on earth). That in mind, he was more than happy to take up Ed’s shift.

It was nine at night when he’d padded through the front door of their apartment, eyes heavy and shoulders tense. He was more than ready to hop into bed and pass out for a good ten hours, but he just wanted to be sure.

In the three months of parenting Lovell, if that was what anyone could call it, he’d come into the habit of checking on him before bed. He’d always walk in and see that black tuff of hair, breathing leisurely because he was fast asleep. Sometimes he’d reach down and move his hair out of his face and readjust his covers so he was warmer on the colder autumn nights. If there was one thing Lovell hated, it was being cold. He’d throw a fit whenever they took him outside in the chilly Mayview breezes, especially if they’d forgotten to slip the orange beanie Isaac had purchased onto his head before leaving. Heck, Max had seen the kid throw a hissy fit because the high chair was too cold to sit in come sunrise (though their kitchen did get unusually chilly in the mornings).

Max slid the bedroom door open slowly, careful not to hit the desk behind the door. The room had been an office space before they’d taken Lovell in. It wasn’t a huge loss; Isaac was the only one who used it, and he was just fine drawing on the dining table when the mood really hit him. He didn’t flip the light switch on, though he certainly contemplated it. Instead he wandered up to the crib and stuck a blind hand over the bars.

That was odd- he didn’t feel Lovell in the dead middle of the crib, usually the place Isaac sat him at. He slid his hand along the small mattress until he hit one end of the bars, and then the other.

He started panicking.

He’d slammed the door to Isaac’s room open faster and harder than he’d slammed any door in his life, stomach churning, heart racing, sweat rolling down his chin. Lovell was gone. Only three months in and they were the unlucky victims of some baby-snatching thief, like there weren’t enough kids in the world. Something had to be done right then and there- and Max knew he couldn’t do it alone.

Isaac was his roommate, his partner- his friend, his co-parent. They’d taken every sleepless night, every fussy afternoon, every messy paint-covered wall in the evenings, together. Whatever had happened to Lovell, no matter how small or big, Isaac was going to be right there with him.

Upon switching on Isaac’s light, he found Lovell was there, too.

Isaac was curled up around him, holding their small bundle in his arms with his forehead pressed to Lovell’s head. They were both fast asleep, completely unaware of the bright bulb in the ceiling fan above them. Max faltered, and dropped all his weight against the wall behind him. His heart was still racing, but the panic that’d been icy before was nothing but a warm heat in his veins. He took a few deep breaths, then smiled and took his baseball cap in one hand, tossing it somewhere to the side. As he pushed off the wall, his feet carried him, almost subconsciously, to the side of the bed. He plopped down on Lovell’s other side, setting a hand on Isaac’s where he cradled Lovell’s head.

Bloodshot blue eyes parted and looked at him, looking just as exhausted as Max was feeling. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Just nearly had a heart attack is all.”

Isaac hummed and closed his eyes again, but Max noticed him move his body and Lovell’s closer to him. Max chuckled to himself and laid his head against Isaac’s pillows.

 

 

He was in love. It was plain and simple as that.

The realization came as any other would have, on a day as normal as any other would have been. The sun was setting in their small living room, just around the time Isaac liked to sit down at their dining table by the window and have a cup of tea. He’d chosen lemon tea, just because he loved the contrast of sweet and sour when he added just the right amount of sugar. “We should make him taste a lemon.”

“Is that not child abuse?”

“Max, babies don’t even understand object permanence, and you expect him to remember we put a lemon in his mouth?”

“Cool, doesn’t answer my question.”

Isaac snorted and took another sip from his baby-themed mug. He’d admit it if you asked- he’d certainly become a little more invested in the whole ‘parenting’ shtick than he’d meant to be. He’d known it the moment he’d picked up the mug that read “My Kid is Great because I’m a Super Cool Dad” that he was completely and utterly screwed. He watched Max from over the edge of his cook book- yet another undeniable sign that he’d fallen into the trap of parenthood- with a smile on his lips he prayed his roommate couldn’t see.

Max moved to and fro, tossing Lovell in the air and catching him in arms Isaac knew were loving. He could see it on Max’s face too, when he found him watching Lovell. It was an unfamiliar gleam- a twitch of his lip and an amused bustle vibrating in his throat. Max pressed a kiss to Lovell’s head and moved in a small circle, making himself dizzy. Lovell laughed all the same, so Isaac assumed Max’s methods were working.

It was the way Max’s eyes met his, the way he smiled and tilted his head to nod down at their little one- that was the kicker. Isaac knew, by the sound of his own laugh and the heat of his chest, that he was indisputably in love with Max and in love with their family.

Their family- him, Max, and Lovell.

 

 

“What?”

Max still wasn’t sure he’d heard Isaac correctly, because what he was saying made absolutely zero sense. He slipped off his shoes and lounged back in Isaac’s bed, crossing his arms to set his eyes on level with Isaac’s. They’d been sharing a bed since he’d found both his “roommates” in it, and if anyone asked it was only because it made sense. It was easier to decide which one who them would go settle Lovell should he start crying in the dead of night, as opposed to their original way where whoever got out of their rooms first was the sucker. Did he enjoy sharing a bed? Maybe. Would he ever admit to anyone that he slept better when Isaac wrapped his arms around his waist in his sleep? Never, not in a million years.

“Well, I mean” Isaac wouldn’t look at him. He kept his eyes trained to the foot of the bed, even though they were facing each-other. “We can’t keep Lovell forever, right? Somebody’s gonna adopt him eventually…”

“Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say we couldn’t keep Lovell- which, by the way, I promise you we can- do you really think they’re gonna hand the kid off to anyone outside the Mayview Barrier?”

Isaac winced. “Well, no-?”

“Do you think that they’d pass a baby with the potential to find a tool at any given time to somebody not in-the-know about spectrals?”

“No…”

“So do you think that there’s even a small possibility we’d never see him again- that after we give him to another hypothetical spectral, who likely works for the same organization we do, we wouldn’t be allowed to visit him?”

“No-!”

“So what are you so scared about?”

Isaac fell silent, eyes tightening and throat grumbling even though he didn’t open his mouth. Max watched him unwaveringly, catching every twitch of his brow and bite of his lip; he especially paid attention to the lip. “If we do give him away, then all of this would be over, wouldn’t it?”

“Okay? Care to explain your thought process? ‘Cause angst seems like a never-ending deal with you.”

“If we give Lovell away, will all of this” he motioned to the bed, and Max assumed he meant the sleeping situation they’d silently come to an agreement on “go away?”

“What?” Max grinned at him, barring his teeth so Isaac could understand he was teasing. “You that lonely in bed, Isaac? You don’t wanna sleep alone?”

His freckled cheeks turned red, and Isaac sputtered and shoved him away with a weak hand. “You-! Shut up, Max! I knew I shouldn’t have said anything! Forget I asked!”

It was later in the night, when Isaac was fast asleep on the furthest edge of the bed, away from him, that Max moved in closer. Isaac didn’t have to know- he could play it off in the morning as drowsy maneuvering.

He wrapped his arms around Isaac’s chest and pulled him away from the edge of the bed, setting his face in his back so he could feel every breath Isaac took on his nose. Their legs met, and Max flirted with the temptation of entangling them.

He always slept easier when he was touching Isaac, when he could feel that he was still there.

 

 

“It’s not right for us to keep him, anyway.” He wasn’t sure what brought Isaac on that tangent, but it’d been heading in a downward spiral for a good four or five days. “Two friends raising him? No, every kid needs two parents in a committed relationship- that’s how they know what to look for in a partner, you know?”

Max set his mug of coffee down, eyeing Isaac’s wild pacing from the side as he shifted back and forth to ready Lovell’s lunch. It was just smashed green peas, but Isaac liked to use a specific spoon, one smaller than the rest so Lovell could easier swallow the entire spoonful. “Could he not just watch Ed and Isabel?”

“What? No, Max! That kind of thing is personal. That’d be a second-hand experience. A child needs to see their parents fight, how they solve it, how they spend time together- all of that!”

“So what do you wanna do, Isaac? Because I know you want to keep this kid around.” He did too, but he wasn’t the one in the hot-seat. Isaac was the one arguing to give Lovell up, so he was gonna have to fight Max on it. He’d lose, because that baby was theirs and he wasn’t giving him away for the world, but whatever was up Isaac’s butt was bothering him enough that it needed to be dealt with now.

“I- I don’t know, okay?” He said that as he slipped the first spoonful of peas into Lovell’s wide open mouth, one attentive hand raised to wipe away what was dripping down his chin. The scene was so domestic, Max nearly laughed in his face. “I just- what happens when we have to send him to daycare? Whose name do we give him?”

“Both! Puckett-O’Connor or O’Connor-Puckett or whatever.”

“Do we even have legal custody over him?”

“If we don’t, we’ll take care of it.”

“What will his friend’s parents think? Two friends? Raising a kid together? Alone? He won’t be invited to any parties or- god, he could be ostracized-!”

“Okay fine, then how about we get married?”

Isaac paused mid fourth spoonful, gear visually turning in his head as he searched for a response of some kind. He seemed to be contemplating it, and for a few seconds Max’s heart was soaring far higher than the conversation should have had it. He wondered if he was serious, if he’d really meant the words he just said, because marrying Isaac wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever come up with. He wasn’t sure it was the best, but it certainly didn’t’ feel like a horrible plan. Isaac twisted his head over his shoulder to meet Max’s eyes, his own narrowed and irritated.

“That’s not funny, Max.”

He went back to feeding Lovell and the kitchen grew quiet.

Max took another sip of his coffee and opened the book he’d been reading on his pad.

 

 

Isaac read the paper over and over again, but he still couldn’t figure out what it was.

Max had stormed into their bedroom with a pen in one hand and the paper in the other, and then he stood there waiting for Isaac to make a move. That was a problem, because Isaac still wasn’t sure what was going on. He glanced from the paper to Max, who sat at the edge of their bed, tall on his knees with his arms crossed. “Max, what is this-?”

“Read the top of the page, you dork.”

In clear, 16-point font, there were the words “Marital Settlement Agreement”. Isaac closed his eyes, shook his head, and reread the text. It read the same as it did the first time, and Isaac turned his uncertain eyes on Max’s resolute ones. “Wait, Max, what is this?”

“It’s a marriage contract, dude. Sign it.”

“Wait, what?”

Max pressed the pen to Isaac’s chest, nodding to the paper. “Sign it.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? It’s a marital contract- I’m marrying you.”

“I meant why are you trying to marry me?” It was less romantic than Isaac had imagined it’d be in the seven weeks he’d been helplessly in love with Max, and that in and of itself was a huge fault, but he still clung to the small shred of hope that Max just really wanted to tie the knot with him.

“You’re clearly set on giving Lovell up if we don’t, so I figured we’d get this out of the way now.”

That was a little much, especially considering Isaac’s real struggle wasn’t so much about keeping Lovell as it was his prospering stupid emotions. He’d come to the conclusion, as any sane parent would, that Lovell growing up seeing one Dad pine after the other, fruitlessly, would do nothing but give him all the wrong ideas about love. Isaac wasn’t sure if he had the right ideas himself; he didn’t want to be responsible for screwing his own kid up too. “I thought you were joking!”

“And you were wrong! Wow, first time that’s ever happened, huh?”

“Oh yeah, great proposal Max, insult your fiancé!”

“This is not me proposing to you!” Max’s entire face turned an odd shade of red, and he shoved the pen into Isaac’s chest even harder. “This is me telling you that I am not giving up Lovell because of something this stupid, and you shouldn’t either!”

Isaac promptly stood up, set the paper on the nightstand, and walked out of the room.

 

 

Lovell was having one of those restless nights, the nights he couldn’t sleep and, by default, Isaac and Max couldn’t sleep. Isaac had suggested they just keep Lovell in bed with them and Max was happy to oblige. He would sleep better than he usually did, and not just because he wouldn’t need to get up for the first cry of the evening. He remembered similar nights, sleeping squeezed between his mom and dad- usually nights when he’d had a nightmare and they’d taken him in their arms and promised they’d keep him safe. Cupping Lovell’s head in one hand and holding Isaac’s hand in the other, it just felt right, like he’d returned to a simpler time. Isaac was still wide awake, stroking Lovell’s hair, fingers brushing against Max’s every now and then. He squeezed the hand Isaac had set on Lovell’s stomach, where they’d both set their hands at the same time on pure coincidence. “I don’t wanna mess this up…”

“You’re gonna mess something up, Isaac. You can only do your best.”

“I don’t want him to end up like me.” Isaac sighed and set his forehead on Lovell’s. “I don’t want him to go through what I went through.”

“He won’t.” Max raised an eyebrow, playing offended even though he knew Isaac wouldn’t find much humor in it. “I’m here too, remember?”

Isaac grunted, but there was a smile on his face. He squeezed Max’s hand back and closed his eyes, and Max found his own wandering down the length of his nose to his lips. “We’re a family, right? The three of us?”

“What else would we be?”

“Roommates,” Isaac mumbled, eyes opening and slanting to the side “roommates who just happen to have a baby.”

Max would have looked at the paper laying idly on their nightstand, unmoved for a week, but Isaac’s gaze was so much more fascinating in the dark. “I gave you that marriage contract.”

“I don’t want that.” Isaac tried to pull his hand out of Max’s, but he tugged back and held him still. Isaac faltered and worried his lip again. Max’s gaze trailed from his eyes and back up again, to and fro as Isaac pieced together what to say. “I just want this, but I want him to be healthy, you know?”

“Are we not healthy?”

Isaac paused again, and this time Max pressed his forehead to Isaac’s, gently resting his chin on the pillow just above Lovell’s soft head. It was more intimate than he usually was, but if there was anybody who had the right to see his persona fall- it was his co-parent. Isaac took a breath, stopped, then started to speak again.

“I kind of want you.”

Max stayed still, taking in Isaac’s small shifts from his back to his side and the way Lovell snuffled between them. He ran his thumb along the back of Isaac’s hand, stroking his skin in soft circles wherever he could reach. “Well,” he was laughing as quietly as he could “I gave you that marriage contract.”

He chuckled too. Max dipped his head down to kiss Isaac before the moment passed, lips hardly brushing against each-other, light enough Max almost thought he’d missed. Isaac turned his head up to meet him before he pulled away, kiss so sweet it left Max with something akin to an emotional sugar rush. They both sniggered when they pulled away, fingers intertwining at Lovell’s stomach. “He’s ours, isn’t he?” Isaac’s voice was softer than it had been. He could feel Isaac rub a small circle into Lovell’s stomach, comforting away the tell-tale sounds of an infant’s nightmare.

“Yeah.” His eyes fell to Lovell, whose blubbering had faded to the faintest gurgling noises. “We’re parents.” Isaac leaned forward and kisses him again, then pulled away and pressed a kiss to Lovell’s head. Max followed suit, humming when Lovell’s tiny fingers grasped a small part of his sleeve.


End file.
